Anne Applebaum, Director of the Legatum Institute's Transitions Forum, moderated a discussion with Geoffrey Pyatt, US Ambassador to Ukraine, Oleksander Scherba, Ambassador at Large at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Michael Weiss, Editor-in-Chief of The Interpreter, and Peter Pomerantsev, journalist and documentary producer. John Herbst, Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Centre at the Atlantic Council and partner for this event, gave introductory remarks.

The Kremlin's war in Ukraine includes not just covert military action, but deception and confusion- a new vision of how to conduct warfare in the 21st century. To fight Russian disinformation we must first define it.

Peter Pomerantsev opened the discussion by quoting a 'pearl of wisdom' from Russian media 'guru' Vasily Gatov: "In the 20th century, the great battle was for freedom of information. In the 21st century the battle will be over the abuse of freedom of information by various maligned state and non-state actors".

Since 2008, Pomerantsev argued, the Kremlin and military in Russia have adopted a body of thinking where information can be used as a tool to "confuse, demoralise, divide and conquer" and thus be used as a weapon. This comes from the Kremlin's recognition that it cannot take on the West in a traditional military fashion and expect to win. Rather, over the years, Putin has talked about needing to be cleverer than the other side.